Bolivia

It's been a long time since our last entry - mostly because we are now actually on the beaches of Brazil and the pace of life and travel has slowed to a snail's pace. Quite frankly we are exhaused from doing nothing. But it wouldn't do justice to the last part of our Peru and Bolivia trip if we didn't finish off the story.

Our journey continues from Cuzco to the town of Puno on the edge of Lake Titicaca by bus (all day). Our first glimpse of Lake Titicaca reminded us of looking at the ocean as it was so vast! This lake is the highest navigable lake in the world with a surface area of over 8,000 square kms. We stayed one night in Puno and then we were off on a little "put put" boat moving at about a 1/2 knot per hour to visit the islands. The first island was Taquille which is very unique in that the people retain almost all of thier traditional ways of life. The women spin the wool and but it is only the men who do the knitting. Everyone participates in community improvement projects. Power is generated by solar panels. The lifestyle seems simple, but we can learn a lot from their example.

We had lunch here and took a little hike around then it was off to the island of Amantani where we stayed with a local family. Our "mama's" name was Norma. She was very sweet. We got dressed up in traditional clothing and went to a dance at the town hall. It was a hoot! This was definitly a highlight. We had a bit of luck with our mama's house as it seemed to be the only one with a flushing toilet and a light in the loo which was run by solar panels. We've learned to be grateful for small luxuries and not to take the small things for granted. The house had little rooms with little doorways and the kitchen had a dirt floor with little chairs. The food, which was very basic, was cooked on a tiny terracotta clay oven heated by fire.

The next day were were back on the slow boat and off to the famous Uros floating islands. The sky had the most beautiful fluffy white clouds. The islands were fascinating, however, they now exist more for the tourists and to maintain the traditional ways of life but are no longer are real communities. It was then back to Puno for one night before catching the bus to cross the border into Bolivia.

Here's a link for more info on Lake Titicaca.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Titicaca

Early the next morning we got on the bus to cross the border into Bolivia. There was quite a bit of discussion about the crossing as Bolivia has a bit of a reputation for trouble. Our tour guide Fiorella actually changed our route to avoid a certain border that she knew could be quite difficult. I'm not sure what that meant but I'm sure there was a good reason to change. Our crossing went smoothy although it was a scene of organized chaos. People and buses everywhere and several different police offices to visit. At one stage we had to get off the bus and walk the 1/2 km over the border from the Peru side to the Bolivian side. (I'm not sure how the old and lame do this.) It was quite exciting actually.

After the border crossing our first stop in Bolivia was the little resort town of Copacabana. Which is actually the original Copa - the famous beach in Rio is named after the Bolivian Copa! We had lunch here and found out how unbelievably cheap it is to travel in Bolivia. Wish we had booked more time here as one could live very well on very little. After our lunch stop in Copa we were on the final leg to La Paz. (The highest capital city in the world.) We had heard a lot about La Paz on other parts of our trip and everyone warned us how dangerous it is. So upon arriving we were quite wary and on guard. All backpacks carried on our fronts for safety. We were actually just looking forward to getting the La Paz part over with. However, we were pleasantly surprized. Bolivia is a very poor country and for that reason one has to be careful. But we found that, as in all places, the hype seems to be worse than the reality. We had a lot of fun in La Paz and took a city tour to get the feel of the city since we had such a short time there. On our last night we had a big drink up with the group in a restaurant/bar with a real Cuban salsa band - What luck, of course we danced our pants off and had a fab time.

Thanks to everyone in the group for all the fun and laughs! You got that??!!